I'm finding search to be to too narrow due to the new category filters.

[clu3]

I listed Crisloid Bakelite chips this morning and could not find them in search even when I sorted by nearest.  Turns out, Ebay was choosing the category "Vintage Manufacture" (I'm not sure how that is even considered a category) instead of showing me "Collectibles > Bakelite" (which by the way was the category suggested when I listed the item).  I had to select ALL on the left of the screen in order to get the correct results.  How many buyers aren't going to realize they aren't seeing everything and just give up?

However, when I searched "Crisloid Bakelite" using picclick I got exactly the results I was looking for with a screen that wasn't clogged up with unwanted ads or nonsense.  Which is what sent me back to Ebay to figure out why I was seeing about 40 fewer results using their search.

[nobody*s_perfect]

eBay calls this "implicit category navigation" but it's not new; see the final post (#44) in this thread from 2015:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Weekly-Chat-with-eBay/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Mobile-Team-Oc...

When I do a search on Crisloid Bakelite chips, I get 22 results and they're automatically from "All" categories.  The term "Vintage manufacture" is a truncated version of the subcategory title "Vintage manufacture board & traditional games" which does make some sense.

[southern*sweet*tea]

Welcome to what vintage cookbook searchers deal with when trying to find cookbooks since Ebay did away with the cookbook category.

All searches are automatically defaulted to non-fiction instead of "all", which totally hides all vintage cookbooks listed in antiquarian/collectible and the various food advertising categories. This means if the searcher does not notice they are auto-defaulted to non-fiction, they won't find any of the really good stuff, and leave Ebay thinking we have nothing here.

Sounds like a great plan, right?